Today, we're excited to feature a real little wedding. This celebration illustrates you can have an intimate, unique, fuss-free wedding and keep it within your budget.
This lovely couple celebrated their wedding in August 2023 in South Otago. Our bride is from Tauranga and a nurse in her mid 30s. Her husband is from Clinton, Otago, and has since moved up to Tauranga where they enjoy hanging out with their animals, four-wheel driving and playing chess together
In this blog post, we learn some really helpful hints on how to plan a gorgeous little wedding and make big budget-savings along the way. Read on to find out more about this awesome couple, why they wanted to have a little wedding, and how they went about the planning. There are some seriously helpful nuggets of inspo in here, we want to send a big thanks to the couple for sharing their experience!
Q: Where did you get married and who was there?
We got married on the 12th August 2023 in South Otago. Our ceremony included 20 guests at Lovells Flat Church of our closest family and a few friends. We had an afternoon tea celebration with 30 guests in Clinton at my husbands parents house.
Q: Why did you want to have a little wedding?
A: We aren’t the type of people to have a big birthday party, so the same went for our wedding. We wanted intimate, no fuss and for the entire event to be finished up within a few hours. We also knew we would save money by having a smaller wedding, so that motivated us too.
Q: You had your wedding ceremony at a local church, what were your plans after the ceremony and why did you choose to celebrate that way?
We had a traditional Christian wedding ceremony with my husbands minister which was important to us. After the ceremony, we had photos with guests who then travelled 40 minutes to the afternoon tea.
We decided to have afternoon tea in Clinton for a relaxed feel without time restraints. There was a bit of travel between the ceremony location and my in-laws house, but after that there were no more requirements or formalities so we could relax and enjoy the time spent with our friends and family.
We had extra guests join us for the celebration that lived nearby and most importantly, where we stayed that night was a close drive for us.
Q: You planned your wedding in less than 10 weeks - some people would think that's impossible! How did you do it?
Yes, we planned our wedding within 10 weeks and we would have had the wedding sooner if we could! That would have meant less time feeling stressed and overthinking the plans.
Because we planned to have a smaller wedding and already knew we were going to get married in the church, we had less decisions to make. First we selected a date, and then booked the main wedding vendors, those being catering, photography and hair and makeup.
The other smaller decisions came later as we got closer to the wedding date. We even selected our wedding song the day before the wedding!
We chose to go without certain elements such as decorations to keep the organising simple - and it worked.
Q: Your total wedding budget was less than $5k. Can you tell us more about how you planned a beautiful, intimate wedding within your budget?
Our wedding cost $4,470 including my dress and my husband's suit (but excluding the wedding rings).
I knew I didn’t want to pay thousands for a venue that we would only use for a few hours, so we used a beautiful church for the ceremony and photos ($340) and my in-laws hosted the afternoon tea at their house - they also gifted us a wedding cake.
We provided afternoon tea and a dessert platter for 30 guests for only $600, and included a selection of drinks too.
We organised the photographer to cover the ceremony and group photos afterwards which was only a few hours of their time. The photographer met us at the church and didn’t travel to our afternoon tea - which I have no regrets about. We got absolutely lovely photos and are super happy with them.
We didn’t have a videographer so I had my good camera set up on a tripod and had a family member press play to film the ceremony. This was so I could share it with my grandparents who weren't able to travel to Otago.
I didn’t spend any money on decorations which definitely helped with the budget, and I'm still happy about that decision, the guests didn't even notice. For flowers, we had two dried flower bouquets ($150) and then picked some eucalyptus fresh from the farm.
A friends father allowed us to borrow his classic car which cost us a box of beer, and my maid of honour decorated it for us.
We didn’t spend money on little things like perfume, jewellery, cufflinks, a ring box, cake knife or my footwear for the day. We used what I already owned and love.
Q:You planned your wedding in the off-peak season, what are the advantages?
I highly recommend a wedding in the off-peak season for a variety of reasons. We found we were able to secure our first-choice of vendors on short notice as they were available. We also noticed that some vendors have winter package prices which was a nice perk.
Q: What's your top piece of advice for anyone planning a wedding?
Stick to what is important to you and your partner and don’t let other people interfere. You won’t regret doing your wedding your way.
Q: Would you change anything about your wedding?
I wish it had snowed!
Q: Anything else to share?
Don’t underestimate how special a little wedding can be.
WEDDING VENDORS
Venue - Lovells Flat Church
Photographer - Letitia Louise Photography
Hair & Make-up - Annalysse at FACE Body & Beauty
Catering - Professional Catering in Balclutha
Dried flowers - Sweet Stems in Bay of Plenty
If you've planned a little wedding, we'd love to feature it in the blog! Get in touch.
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